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disruption Keynote Speakers

23 May

Posted at 00:24h in Dave Knox

For over 25 years, ECRM has been driving efficiencies into the buying and selling process between retailers and brands by hosting over 100 category-specific, face-to-face Programs per year. When the COVID-19 Pandemic shut down travel, the company quickly pivoted, launching not just one, but three new takes on their business model in just under two months. I sat down with Joseph Tarnowski, VP of Content for ECRM, to talk more about how the company’s culture and long-standing embrace of a Continuous Beta mindset helped them move quickly when time was of the essence.

Dave Knox: Let’s start with the background of ECRM and the integral role that you play with the retail and CPG industry?

Joseph Tarnowski: We serve the industry in two ways. One is through our Programs, which are category specific and revolve around private, prescheduled, face-to-face meetings. I use the word programs, not events, because we are not an event company, especially in a traditional sense of a conference or expo. The format and the process of what we do is different. We have around 100 programs across four divisions including food and beverage, general merchandise, health and beauty care, and pharmacy. The main goal is giving these retail buyers discover emerging brands and help them with their category planning. With suppliers, we’re giving them access to these buyers at scale. Anybody can have a meeting, any supplier can go and find a buyer and set up a meeting, but we’re giving them the ability to do this at scale in a condensed amount of time. This includes access to our high-touch Client Success team that works closely with our buyers and suppliers to curate a schedule of relevant appointments by matching buyer needs and objectives with suppliers’ products and capabilities Within two or three days, you’re having anywhere from 50 to 150 meetings depending on the category. The second aspect of the business is the RangeMe product discovery platform, which ECRM acquired 3 years ago. This is a marketplace format with several thousand retail buyers and more than 200,000 suppliers. RangeMe also serves as the inbound product submission platform for many of the largest retailers in the country. A brand uploads their product information, builds a profile on RangeMe and then it gets routed to the appropriate buyer at the retailer. These two parts of our business work in tandem to bring buyers and suppliers together in an efficient and effective way.

Knox: RangeMe is proving to be a very prescient acquisition in today’s environment. What drove ECRM to acquire the business at that time?

Tarnowski: We were looking towards the future and originally we were going to build our own digital offering to bring brands and retailers together because knew it would compliment our business. Obviously, everything is going digital and while we didn’t believe that face-to-face was going away, we did recognize that digital was going to be an important part of our business. Ultimately we decided it was easier and faster to acquire the best in class platform that was out there rather than build our own from scratch. RangeMe already had the reputation and they were very well known with our audience. They had a great platform so why duplicate the process?

Knox: COVID- 19 has greatly impacted the industry that you serve with retailers and brands unable to meet in person. How has ECRM and RangeMe responded?

Tarnowski: Once we started seeing the warning signs with major industry events being postponed and buyers having travel restrictions, we knew the industry was going to have major pain points. As a company, we stepped back, looked at our community, and we realized that because we already have our format and our process of working with these audiences, we could step in and help right away.

The first line of action was RangeMe, where they worked with retailers that have the RangeMe link on their site, and RangeMe handles their inbound product submissions. What they did in mid-March, just as quarantine was starting, was to work with eight major retailers to do what they referred to as sourcing campaigns. So for example, Fresh Thyme Farmers Market was one of them. They announced that all suppliers who couldn’t meet with buyers because of the trade shows closing, they could submit products to Fresh Thyme Farmers Market through RangeMe. Then at the end of the month, all their buyers are going to spend a good portion of a day dedicated to just reviewing those product submissions.

The second was on the ECRM side where we came up with what we called our Efficient Supplier Introductions (ESIs). They are a one-to-many virtual presentation where we have up to 20 category specific buyers and 10 suppliers. Over a two hour period, each supplier gave a 10- minute presentation to that panel of buyers. And we hit a nerve with that because within two weeks of launching it, we had more than 1,000 buyers sign up. For example, you had one buyer jump on the first ESI, then two days later, we had 30 buyers from that same retailer sign up across the categories. The word got around of this really efficient way to find products that they needed.

So the Efficient Supplier Introductions worked very well but we also had feedback that buyers wanted something a little more akin to our in-person experience with the one-on-one interaction directly with each supplier, rather than as a group. The suppliers were looking for that too. That is what led us to launch our Virtual Programs, which is basically the same format and process that we use in person, but with a customized, digital meeting platform layered on top of it.  Both the retailers and suppliers have still have a highly customized experience where they are assigned a client success manager who will have a consultation with them and learn their needs and objectives. That Client Success Manager curates an appointment schedule that is completely relevant and as perfectly matched as possible so no time is wasted.  Now that has been ported to the digital format, but everything else is the same as far as the underlying process, the format, and the very high touch customer service.

We were kind of unintentionally set up for this happening. With our process and format, all we had to do was just layer the technology on top of it. And the technology is a version of an app that the buyers and sellers use at the in-person meetings already. Now it’s just facilitating the virtual meeting component.

Knox: What is remarkable is that while others in the industry cancelled or postponed events, ECRM quickly pivoted with not just one, but really three different innovations in just two months. What is the culture of ECRM that allowed this mindset of Continuous Beta?

Tarnowski: You nailed it by saying culture. The underlying ECRM culture is really what separates us apart from any other organization I’ve worked with in my life. The culture is a true team, where if something happens, everybody drops everything and pitches in, straight up to the CEO. I’ve seen Greg Farrar, our CEO, helping carry boxes and moving stuff in our sessions countless times. It starts from the top and resonates throughout the whole company.

There are so many instances where the company is able to adapt and turn quick. We foster that kind of action within the company. If you think it works, give it a shot. If it doesn’t work, or if something doesn’t work, we iterate. Get the feedback from the market, apply it. And even in our process at our sessions, during every single session we have what is called an exit interview. Our staff will meet with every buyer and every supplier participating, and have a 20-minute discussion with them to just to get feedback. All of that feedback is entered and then at the end of each session, we have a meeting called correction of errors, where we take all that feedback and we put action items against it to apply to future sessions. As a result, the whole company has that culture of constantly taking feedback, applying it to the business, and then growing at each step along the way. That culture is what enabled us to really move quickly.

Knox: Everyone is hypothesizing on what’s going to be the new normal. In your industry, what do you think the role of virtual programs is going to be going forward?

Tarnowski: That’s actually been a big discussion point with the team and we believe that virtual is here to stay. It is not going anywhere and will be part of the new normal. There are a few different ways to look at it.

Several of our in-person programs have become known as the place where everybody in a category gathers and it’s a highlight of the year for the industry. Those will always be in-person. But there are other sessions that might be smaller, which will more than likely stay virtual.  Retailers have told us that they are going to be traveling a lot less going forward and will need to pick their spots. That will also help us determine which ones will be virtual vs in-person. So we are planning for a mix that includes in-person, virtual sessions, and ESI’s that we schedule around the times when the buyers are doing their category planning or midyear review. For instance, the ESI’s might become a tool for the midyear review when they are looking at a refresh of just adding a few new products.

We are really going to let the market determine which way different programs go. If they really are fine doing it virtual, we’ll do it virtual. It’s easier for everybody. There are so many less moving parts in terms of getting there and coming home and digging out from that. It will vary from category to category because each category has a different personality. Some are more about the face to face and the social part that goes with it. Some of them are a little more about just the meetings. Once we do get past this and it is okay to travel, some are going to stay virtual and some are going to be in person. By extending our services to include virtual meetings along with the in-person meetings and RangeMe, we’re now able to serve our customers whenever, wherever and however will best fulfill their needs.

Knox: With that in mind, ECRM isn’t an event company but you do have a great expertise for in-person. What happens on the other side of this for the entire event industry ranging from mega events like CES to more niche gatherings?

Tarnowski: I think at least minimum until we get a vaccine, any place where you have those massive get togethers of 50,000+ people, it’s not going to be the same. There are still way too many unanswered questions. The event still might happen but there is going to be social distancing, whether it’s by regulation or just by people wanting to maintain social distance. There is an intimacy at that is just not going to be there and it is going to change the way people interact at events. A lot of major industry trade shows follow the same format with an expo format that has a thousand booths and massive audiences sitting close together. Those are going to have to completely rethink their formats.

We were able to make this pivot because by nature, our programs, our sessions are smaller. We’re only bringing the relevant buyers and suppliers for the category. As a result, the total audience is maybe 600 people at a session.  That is why we’ll have 100 of these during the year, but our total audience at each one is small. So even in person, we would be able to manage that with those social distancing requirements. But how do you do that with an 80,000 person event? That’s going to be very tough. And then it is the sponsors of those events and the participants who are paying to go there. What are they going to think? Will the value be there for that cost? They may just opt for something virtual instead because they’re not going to get what they got from in-person for a while.

*This article first appeared in Forbes on May 20, 2020

Dave Knox has been recognized throughout the industry as an innovator who bridges the world between brand marketing, digital and entrepreneurship. Invite him to speak at your next virtual or LIVE event!

27 Apr

Posted at 17:26h in Uncategorized

Dave Knox sat down to talk about the rise of cybersecurity and why today – particularly in our new work from home environment – it is becoming a topic of board room discussion. In 2002, Scott Price was 26 years old when his employer, Arthur Andersen, went out of business following Enron. With his focus on auditing security around technology controls, Scott started his first company, growing it to $11 million in revenue seven years later. Sensing a broader opportunity, Scott left to start A-LIGN in 2009. As CEO and Founder of A-LIGN, they help companies comply with different regulatory and information security standards globally.

Dave Knox: When you started your career, audits and compliance were mostly financial. Early in your career, you saw that a change was coming and that need would broaden. How has cybersecurity changed compliance over the last decade?

Scott Price:  I think compliance really allows businesses to trust each other. I talk about the fact of what we do allows businesses to trust and respect each other. They want to be able to trust businesses back and forth of sharing data and us as consumers, we want to make sure our companies respect the data that we give to them. A-LIGN’s focus on having a very broad framework of how we attack those from a security controls perspective, I think really adds value to our clients because they see the fact that they can either raise funds, do business with a new company, move upstream or really just improve their business because of that trust. Having great cybersecurity controls in place is going to mitigate risk and make your company more successful.

Knox: Is the conversation around cybersecurity changing at the executive level?

Price: I think people are starting to talk about it moving from behind the scenes to the board room and I really do believe it’s become a board room discussion. But security is still not the place where we say okay, if we have a dollar to spend on sales and marketing or we have a dollar to spend on security, we’re going to choose security. Companies are going to consistently choose growth metrics and growth dollars over the fact that these are things that could happen. Let’s face it, with cybersecurity we know it’s going to happen, it’s not the if but the when it will happen. You do see it continuously getting more exposure at the board level though. And the focus will continue to increase as greater fines are incurred, companies lose major customers, and relationships are strained when you’ve influenced their cybersecurity environment.

We’re clearly biased as a company that helps organizations of all sizes reduce cybersecurity risks, but we feel that the ability to spend dollars to demonstrate compliance with cybersecurity regulations really will allow sales and marketing to drive further. We found that 66% of our client base takes on Series A funding or greater within 160 days of hiring us. We’ve seen the fact that they will get the funding and then want to move up market, so they’ll need to build these security controls in place. Or they’ll be looking for the funding and they’ll want to make sure that they have the best security controls as they go through due diligence. Investors and Strategic Buyers are starting to look at the compliance framework during the diligence process so it’s becoming a bigger, bigger issue.

Knox: Is there a way to measure an ROI when you think about security?

Price: I think the ROI is more if you don’t do something. You have to do it. People continuously underestimate the risk of bad things happening. I go back to the movie the Big Short. They found great investments because people don’t think that bad things are going to happen. They always undervalue it. I think it’s hard to put a dollar exactly on what the ROI is. I think it’s more along the lines of how it drives the sales and marketing aspect which you can put a dollar on that. It’s easier to measure the growth than to measure the penalty.

Knox: We mostly think of compliance and security as an IT responsibility but what you’re saying is it’s moving closer to being something the entire c-suite needs to care about. How do you think about that role of cybersecurity becoming more horizontal?

Price: There’s an often used phrase that they say cybersecurity is a team sport. It really is. We see the fact that sales and marketing are looking at their competition and seeing the types of certifications and assessments that those competitors can promote. They realize they need the same thing to be able to compete in the marketplace. We see it more and more driven by sales and marketing and then it becomes a responsibility of implementation by IT or operations. That in itself allows compliance and cybersecurity to have more visibility and not just sit in the back closet.

Knox: As a founder yourself, how do you coach and think about entrepreneurs engaging with security early on and planning ahead versus reacting?

Price: When you’re in a startup mode you don’t have time to go back and redo code, redo processes and procedures. You want to build those controls that are required for these cybersecurity regulations into the code, into your processes because you’re moving so fast. We really get excited when a CEO calls us of a startup and he or she is engaged with us before they’ve even been asked for the audit or the assessment, before they’ve even building their application and they just have this idea. That’s where we can have the most impact because it’s not going back and retooling a process. That allows us to understand what works for you at this stage and you can grow into that process. For us, the value that we get derived of interacting with what we call “Startup Steve” and that buyer persona is really fascinating for us.

What we find is that this founder is typically someone that came from a large company and they had first hand experience of going through that process, retooling things, and seeing their teams bogged down. They recall that pain and don’t want to have it happen with their startup. They want to align their strategy and their compliance objectives. We love to partner with them early on and be able to not have to experience that pain.

Not some people haven’t had to experience that pain before. For them, the biggest thing is to try to relate to them of where their objectives are and how we can fit into that and get them there sooner. They want to be able to get to market and they want to be able to acquire new customers. We tell them that if we partner now, we’ll be able to do that with you in a much easier format, take you to market quicker and be able to achieve whatever they want to do faster. We are able to talk about our experience with 2,400 clients, many of which we started working with when they were in the startup and small business phase. We can make those connections and help them understand why it’s so important to do this work at the startup phase rather than building processes and having to retreat later on.

Knox: In your own journey as an entrepreneur and as you have worked with over 2,400 companies, what lessons do you wish you had when you were starting that first company at 26 years old?

Price: I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned is I wish I would have focused more on how to be a good leader and CEO and to invest in our people early on. I constantly hear “you’ve built this great company in A-LIGN” but the thing is, we don’t sell a widget, we don’t sell a car. We sell our people being experts in their industry and being able to go out and interact with our clients. As we received our investment from FTV Capital, we’ve invested tremendously in our people with training and also in our technology. Those are the things that I wish I had done earlier and raised capital in order to be able to do that because we’ve seen the dividends of that pay off. If we had done that work in 2014, we might be 10 times where we’re at now.

We have four values and one of our four values is innovate constantly. We firmly believe that our clients want us to innovate and be on top of what we’re doing because they’ve chosen us as their trusted provider to be able to do just that. For someone that wants to grow and be pushed to the limit, this is the best feeling. This is what I love to do because we are constantly learning about new attack techniques that hackers are trying to do. The great thing is the hackers get worse every day and we have to get better to be able to support our clients. Standards change every day because cybersecurity threats change every day. This is one of the most interesting industries that allows us to have these constant changes, to keep it interesting. The standard is constantly evolving. Our client’s risk is constantly evolving. The technology behind what they’re doing is evolving. This makes this very interesting. We don’t sell black and white TV’s at A-LIGN. We’re in cybersecurity and it’s constantly evolving.

Knox: COVID-19 has created a new cybersecurity threat landscape for C-suite executives – especially CEOs, CIOs and CISOs. What kind of threats are organizations facing and what should you consider when choosing a compliance partner?

Price: The new threat landscape created by COVID-19 is our new reality – and even the most prepared business continuity plans likely did not plan for a worldwide pandemic that would disrupt business and IT operations. Organizations are facing new risks regarding a remote workforce and compliance initiatives as cyber criminals attempt to exploit the fear of the unknown. Continuing to maintain compliance, even during uncertain times, remains vital – and finding an experienced partner you trust that has the right people, process and platform will transform any security and compliance experience.

Dave Knox is a leading consultant, speaker, and coach in the areas of innovation, marketing, and digital transformation. Invite him to keynote your virtual or LIVE meeting/event.

(This article first appeared in Forbes on April 20, 2020)

 

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